We Try Everything on the Menu at Tacos Manuel

I’m here to tell you a story, my friends. A story about how one fine day, all the way back in August, the heavens opened.

You might think I’m being dramatic. But I’m not.

Now, I’m going to show you a picture.

You know the sound byte I’m talking about. Tell me if in your head, when you look at this picture, you don’t hear the sound of angels going “oooahhh!!!”

Well, that’s the sound I hear, anyway.

There are few times in life when fortune smiles this greatly upon you. Let me taco bout (sorry) this definitive time with you.

My friend and I had gone through a series of absurd bets about who would be single for the shortest amount of time (yes, really). After these bets, I ended up owing my friend tacos. He owes me tacos, too, because we both lost (won?) and went ahead and each found ourselves a significant other.

So, to the taco truck we went. This particular taco truck is called Tacos Manuel, and you can find it tucked away behind the 17th Street El Pollo Loco in Santa Ana. If you talked to a local, they know Tacos Manuel. Sorry, El Pollo Loco, people know you, too. But you ain’t got nothing on Manuel.

Let me ask you: could you get THIS at El Pollo Loco? I like El Pollo Loco as much as the next person, but if you give me a choice between these two things, Tacos Manuel wins every time. Just on the onions alone. Oof, the onions. We’ll get back to those.

So, we were talking about the heavens opening.

It was at this precise moment that they opened.

I walked up to the truck, and my friend was already there. I had my credit card out and ready to go. But my friend had spoken to Manuel a little bit before, saying we were going to do a photo shoot. And Manuel said he’d take care of us.

Boom. Heavens opened. Feast.

Welcome to my happy place, at a food truck surrounded by tacos, quesadillas, mulitas, y tortas. I sort of lied to you in my title. The only thing that wasn’t brought out were the burritos. You guys might want to fight me after saying this. But I’ve long had the thought that most Mexican food is different ways of packing meats and sauces into differently sized tortillas, so I feel like I got a pretty good idea of what the burrito probably tasted like.

And you know what? That burrito tasted like DANK.

Because everything else was, indeed, dank.

My second favorite thing on the menu was the quesadilla. As you can probably tell from how I’m so into my food that I can’t even look at my friends. That’s probably because I’m a typical food junkie, and it was the only thing that had cheese on it, and cheese makes the world go round.

Picture Wallace from Wallace & Gromit saying “Cheeeese.” That’s me, like, all the time. (Especially when I did Whole30 and didn’t have cheese for a month and a half.) ((Who actually still knows what Wallace & Gromit is?))

Yeah, that melty boi with the greasy, crispy exterior and juicy meats is what really hit the spot.

But why do I say it was my second favorite thing?

Because my favorite thing is those dang ONIONS. You’ll notice there are some onions hiding under the the jalapeno in this picture. There used to be more, before this picture was snapped. And that’s because I could NOT stop eating them. Honestly, it’s gross, but just give me a bowl of those onions and I’d sit down and eat them with a smile on my face until every last one was gone.

Seriously, there’s something about food truck onions. If you know, you know.

If you live in Southern California, you’ve definitely had tacos at some point in your life. Sometime this year, definitely. Sometime this month, probably. This week, even. Today. Heck, you’re probably eating a taco right now, aren’t you?

My point is, you’ve had some dang tacos. You’ve had fancy tacos. You’ve had homemade tacos. You’ve had tacos made out of ingredients that aren’t even tacos (you know, when a vegan restaurant makes some kind of zucchini taco?) ((I just lost like 100% of my vegan audience. It’s a joke, guys. They’re pretty good.))

Come at me, other states. If you haven’t lived in California, you haven’t eaten a taco. At least, not like this.

And that’s what I appreciated about Tacos Manuel (besides, uh, the everything and the onions.) When you go to rustle up some grub, you’re getting a taco. The way tacos are meant to be. Don’t get me wrong, I love fancy tacos with weird ingredients and inventive sauces and bougie flourishes.

But they ain’t tacos, man. Tacos Manuel is giving you a taco that’s delicious not because of the frou frou, but because it was made by someone who really knows what they’re doing.